He stepped into his bank and transferred to his personal account the remaining three hundred thousand William thought he had paid the kid’s family. He took out a thousand in cash to have some emergency money at home. The teller at the bank was actually flirting with him. He was pretty sure. His new face had created some new experiences. Pretty girls had never flirted with him. Now they were. The idea that he could have them without kidnapping them had never entered his mind. He thought about it for a minute and decided a real girlfriend would be too much work. He would have to kill them eventually anyway. He couldn’t risk anyone knowing too much about him. Besides, he would miss that look of terror as he raped them.
He had learned from his previous abductions in Indiana that it was best to keep a secure room, with a bathroom, so his visitors could take care of themselves. The room was absolutely sound proof and escape proof. He had camera surveillance, so he could watch from upstairs. Other than the fact the room had no windows, at first glance it looked like any guest room in any house. He even had his cleaning lady keep it tidy when it wasn’t occupied. There were hydraulic bolts that locked the door on three sides when activated. He had seen that at the prison. Very effective.
Today he was arranging a lightweight shatterproof vase with fresh flowers for next to the bed. He had a bag of groceries to stock the small bar frig. He checked the dressing table and replaced the brush, comb, and perfume bottles. He checked the bathroom and left a new toothbrush and toiletries. He smiled. As rapists go, he was a first class host.
Agent Ray Davis looked at the two CIA Agents standing at either side of the door to his office and placed a call to Roger. “Agent Dance? This is Agent Davis from IT, in Virginia.” Roger was alert. There was no reason for Ray to be so formal with him.
Roger said, “Yes, Ray?”
Agent Davis continued, “I have two agents from the CIA in this office demanding that I vacate the premises to them.”
Roger wasn’t totally surprised, “Put one on the phone.” Roger spoke with an Agent Harrison who stated they were given orders to be on standby to take over. Roger told him he would get the advice of his Director, and in the mean time they were to continue to wait. Roger called the Director who said he had been in phone conversations for the last hour with the CIA who felt the computer operation should go to them in light of some of the international data being found. The Director had just finalized a compromise. Ray would have a couple of playmates for a while.
Roger called Ray back and told him he was to play nice and be sure no one did anything accidently to destroy data. He also asked him if the five million dollar payment was showing anywhere yet. Ray was already sending over information regarding the payment and the tracking results. He also sent an account history of all banking activity for the last three months on all of the accounts associated with the wire. Ray stated he was also getting the personal identification information on all of the accounts, but it was going to take a while. Some of the transactions were sourced in offshore accounts and might be extremely difficult to trace.
Roger thanked him and then asked, “Do you remember when we got Devon’s cell phone from Sandy when we first found her? Where can I find the forensics on the calls that had been made? Also, I want to review the calls made from Sandy’s phone that Devon was using at the time of the arrest. Can you get those too?” Ray answered he had kept a lot of that information in a file and would send it over as soon as possible.
Ray had been making copies of the hard drives since he had arrived and decided he would slip them into his car just in case the CIA took over the entire operation. He had also downloaded the complete hard drives to a cloud data storage file for later retrieval by his own computers. Ellen had made sure the cloud transmission had left no trace. She also left Ray a special door for entry to the cloud. He sent a couple of entries to Roger and told the two CIA agents he was going to drive down the street a ways to pick up a sandwich at the Sub Shop. The CIA agents gave Ray orders for themselves and continued copying files and viewing codes. They were waiting to receive more specific orders from their operations.
William Patterson and his new friend had enjoyed a leisurely breakfast on William’s veranda and were sharing the morning newspaper, the Times-Picayune. George was reading the crime section and said, “I don’t understand why New Orleans can’t police this city. We have over 1200 officers, and they are on the crime pages as much as the criminals!” William just grunted. He was beginning to tire of George’s company already. He knew George was just hanging around to get paid, so he reached into his robe, pulled out a small roll of hundred dollar bills, and counted off six.
George looked pleased and said, “Would you like some company tonight after I close the Gallery? Say for dinner and drinks?”
William looked at him, “I probably will George, but I dare say it won’t be with you. Nothing personal.”
“How is that not personal?” George was pouting, and William realized he had a drama queen on his hands.
“You are too old George. Nothing personal. Show yourself out.” William snapped his paper open and hid behind the print. George got up. He was so angry he had started crying,
“Don’t even tell me you are one of those sick bastards who wants kids! Sick bastard!” William didn’t bother to answer. George left the veranda, and moments later William heard the door slam.
William walked into his drawing room and sat on his favorite chair. On the table was a stack of travel brochures. He was trying to decide where he wanted to spend the winter. As he flipped through them he realized it was time for a manicure. His house maid would be reporting this morning to clean, so he decided to get dressed and spend the morning at the manicurist and the travel agency. His phone rang. It was Devon. William answered. Devon told him the boy’s family had accepted payment and had signed a confidentiality contract.
William was pleased. “I am making plans to winter somewhere. Maybe Belize, I haven’t decided yet. Are you staying here?” Devon answered he had no intention of leaving, and William should keep him up to date on where he was in case he was needed.
A police car screamed past. William sighed. He needed a break from all of the crime in the city. He didn’t consider himself a criminal.
Agent Manigat buzzed Roger to tell him he had travel information available. Roger told him to assemble the team in about one hour in the conference room, and they would map out their initial plan. Roger called Paul, “Do you have a few minutes to help me review the information Ray just sent over?”
Paul answered, “Yeah, just give me about ten minutes to finish up here.” Paul was reviewing the information that had been transmitted from Ellen. Some of the thoughts of Mark Mills and Jason Sims Roger had not seen yet. It was amazing to Paul they were actually reading the thoughts of these guys. Roger was right. Very tricky stuff.
Paul found Roger bent over his desk, a colored marker in his mouth, with small stacks of paper he was sorting. Ray had sent a handwritten diagram with account numbers to try to help Roger follow the transactions. It looked like a two month job, at least. Ray had made some notes on things that jumped out at him, and Roger was comparing that page to others in the piles. He had decided to use colored highlighters to keep things straight, and had a pile of markers lying on the desk. Paul looked at the stack of markers and said, “Art class? Oh goody.”
Roger looked up, “Can you believe this? I know I am looking at a gold mine here, but it looks to be covered in mud. I need new eyes on this.”
Paul got closer to the desk and winced, “Oh brother! I hope Ray is available for us to call. I have some notes for you on Ellen’s transmission when you get a minute.” Paul was holding up a thick stack of paper.
Roger moaned and said, “Pablo is organizing a briefing in about forty-five minutes from now. Maybe we can look at your notes first and then get back into this?” Paul thought Roger probably needed a break from the wire records, so he laid out the highlights of what he had found on a large credenza against the wall.
> Paul started, “Right here are the thoughts from Jason BEFORE his raid when Ellen had first found him through a phone call from Mathew Core. HERE are the thoughts of Mathew Core during that phone call. HERE are the thoughts of Mathew Core just BEFORE his raid, HERE are the thoughts of Mathew Core AFTER his raid, and HERE are the thoughts of Jason AFTER his raid. This whole pile are the thoughts of Mark Mills, the sniper.” Paul had his eyebrows raised and was giving a questioning look to Roger. The unspoken truth was that there was no way the two of them could even hope to finish these documents in forty five minutes!
Roger was shocked at the volume of printouts Paul had sorted, “Have you read all of those?”
Paul answered, “I don’t think I am ready for a pop quiz, but yeah. There are a few things here that don’t make much sense to me yet. I was reading through pretty fast, just looking for a nugget of gold, as you would say.”
Roger answered, “You and I are the only ones who can see this stuff.” Roger was holding up the papers from Ellen. “Why don’t we have Simon work with us on the money transfers from Ray? He was in fraud, and maybe Ray will have some more by the time our travel meeting is over.”
Paul said, “Then you and I don’t have much time to go through this stuff.” They each grabbed a pile and started reading and taking notes. Paul stopped reading and looked at Roger, “Jason was thinking after the raid he and Mathew had plenty of Intel to just trade for their freedom. He thinks he has good dirt on the CIA and FBI. Listen to this. He says he works for the FBI and CIA…he does dirty jobs. He’s thinking about hits. He was thinking about recent governor pardons, paid for. He was also making a mental list of corruption cases he could prove in New Orleans and some plan to block the federal reorganization of police there. This is some big stuff! He is even thinking about the past mayor, and something about missing court records during Katrina. Illegal city contracts.” Paul turned his palms up and said, “I can’t think of anything this doesn’t cover!”
Roger was engrossed in his papers from Ellen, “Mathew was pretty cocky before his raid, not so much after. He thinks our having the computer Intel is enough, and we wouldn’t need him or Jason. He doesn’t think they have any bargaining power if the computer lab is found. He thinks if Jason gets caught, he has to leave the country. He’s done, retired.” Roger looked at Paul,” If we want to catch Mathew Core, he can’t know we have the computer lab. And another thing, Ray confirmed for me that Mathew Core got a warning call from the FBI field office in New Orleans before the raid.”
Paul looked at Roger, “No shit? We can keep this team from mentioning the computer lab. Who else knows?”
Roger shook his head, “I have no idea. This is another reason I want to work out of Core’s old office as much as we can. We obviously have some problem of our own in New Orleans that we haven’t identified yet.”
Paul pushed his chin forward, he was reading from the Ellen notes. “I wonder if this means anything. This is Jason after the raid. He wants to contact some guy named Carl. Says Mathew has an insurance plan in place in case this happened. Jason is wondering if he can tap some old friends at the CIA. He doesn’t think we can get to a lot of the computer information because of protection programs.” Paul looked at Roger,” He doesn’t know about the Ellen factor.”
Roger was reading the print out from Mathew after the raid. “He was debating shutting everything down. Calling someone named Carl. He is thinking he has enough money to live well for the rest of his life. This is the first mistake he thinks they have made…but it is a big one since the FBI has Mark Mills and knows he is connected to him. Screw him.” Roger looked at Paul, “Doesn’t sound like our sniper Mr. Mills has much to bargain with does it?”
Paul said, “Jason doesn’t have much either. He thinks he does, but I don’t think so. How do you think CIA got in this so fast?”
Roger said, “I wondered that at first, but Ellen took down protection programs. I imagine they started getting all kinds of warnings about data being compromised from that location. Then they found out we were there.”
Paul laughed, “That had to piss them off.”
Roger looked at his watch, said they had better put the Ellen papers in a secure file, and go to the travel briefing. Paul collected them, secured the stack, and wrote on the top Profile Notes. Hopefully, if anyone got hold of the papers they would just think Paul and Roger were playing with profile scenarios. Then he put them into his brief case and looked at the pile of computer records from Ray. “I can’t wait to see Frost’s face when he sees this pile.” They both left for the meeting.
Jeanne and Jeremiah had returned from the supply store with a truck full of material and tools. Jeremiah had assured her his generator was fine, but she picked up a new generator for him anyway. He had insisted on helping her unload the truck near the shack. He only went inside when Jeanne complained the groceries would all be wasted if he didn’t get them refrigerated. She told him to take a nap for a while, so she could plan. She actually was worried he was getting too tired.
She spent the majority of the afternoon rigging a pulley system to remove the dirt from the collapsed wall and ceiling and making a temporary support. The physical labor felt good. Jeanne was drenched with sweat by the time she decided to take a break. The work was coming along well. Jeremiah would have his tunnel back in no time. She needed to get something to eat and went to the house to find Jeremiah plating the table with some kind of stew and the bag of large rolls they had purchased.
Jeanne said, “This smells wonderful! I am starving!”
Jeremiah smiled and poured her a big glass of milk. It was quite a luxury to have both bread and milk at one meal. She had probably spent more in this one trip to town than he did in a year. Jeremiah waited for her to taste his stew. She closed her eyes and moaned that it was delicious. He smiled, “Do you want to know what’s in it?”
Jeanne looked at her spoon. “No,” they both laughed.
Jeanne told him she planned on working another couple of hours building new side walls in the tunnel, and then she was going to get some groceries for Mambo. She asked if he would take her later, and he agreed. Jeremiah said, “We will be in the swamp at night. I will show you where I think the women are being brought into the marsh if you want.” Jeanne thought about that awful night. She felt herself shudder, but she needed to see what Jeremiah had found. She slowly nodded.
Ray had lost his parking spot in front of the building to an old vintage Ford truck. He drove to the end of the street and turned around to park on the other side. A Fed Ex truck pulled away from being double parked in front of the building next door, and a man on a bicycle peddled into the alley. Ray watched the window washer across the street stop working, move his pail and long handled squeegee to the back of a van. He wiped his brow with a red rag from his trouser pocket and waved at a passing motorcycle. Ray thought of Norman Rockwell. He would have loved this street scene.
Ray slowed down to look at the cookie stand the Girl Scouts had set up in the middle of the block. He had a real soft spot for Thin Mints. He decided he would park and walk back to buy a few boxes. Ray’s radio started playing Dr. John signing, “Right place, wrong time.” The closest Ray would ever come to being a bad boy was lovin’ their songs. He turned it up and started singing along, slapping his palms on the steering wheel to assist the drummer.
The ground rumbled and then exploded with a series of thunderous baritone booms. It was definitely a bomb. A block ahead of him the pressure blast sent cars and people flying through the air like toys. Bricks and glass projectiles whistled from the sky mixed with fiery molten debris. Large chunks of concrete slammed into everything below. The dust cloud made it impossible to see. His windshield exploded, and he felt a searing pain in his shoulder and across his chest. Everything went silent.
Ray started to hear muffled sounds. Sirens. Screaming. His eyes wouldn’t open at first. He sensed that someone was leaning in his car from the passenger side. His eyes opened for a brief momen
t. There was a man taking things from his briefcase. Ray tried to speak and everything went dark again.
Agents Manigat, Frost, Nelson and Thor met in the conference room with Paul and Roger to discuss travel arrangements for New Orleans. Roger felt they all should go as soon as possible based on Pablo’s conversation with his sister Jeanne. Roger said, “I made arrangements with the field office to prepare Mathew Core’s building for our use.” He noted the surprised looks at the table and continued, “I understand there are sleeping accommodations for five or six at this site, and I hear it’s pretty nice. I’m thinking Dan, Todd, Simon and Pablo can stay there. I’ve asked that things be made ready and that someone stock the place with some food. September in New Orleans is hot and humid. Give some thought to your clothing choices and how to conceal your weapons. It would help if we could blend in.”
Roger continued, “Our tech man, Ray, sent instructions for our computer needs and those should be ready by this time tomorrow. Paul and I can get rooms at the Marriott on Canal Street. Our back yards will practically be touching. The Marriott has a privileged parking garage, and I will make arrangements for extra spaces. You are not going to get street parking in the French Quarter. There are neighborhoods you can’t get a car through, period. Paul and I will be concentrating on Mathew Core and his crew and the rest of you on Devon and Patterson.”
Agent Dan Thor spoke. “Devon and Patterson know what Nelson and I look like. I think I should get sketches from Pablo’s sister right away?”
Paul answered, “Definitely, and Dan if you could interview her and do an assessment, that would be great too. Have Frost be your lead investigator on Devon and Patterson for now.” Pablo was quiet. He knew the decision had not been made yet about what role he could have in the investigation if any.
Thor said, “Nelson and I could work with the local office to see what help might be there.”
Extreme Heat Warning: A Shallow End Gals Trilogy, Book Two Page 7